


Lighting! Oh, may I call this lightning?

by mentosmorii



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Biblical Allusions, Domestic Fluff, F/F, blackout poetry, references to a strained parent-child relationship (with Samsonetta)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25027897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mentosmorii/pseuds/mentosmorii
Summary: A quiet moment set during the year Juliet traveled the North American wrestling circuit — before Opal returned, before Artemis fell apart again.
Relationships: Juliet Butler/Samsonetta
Comments: 13
Kudos: 14





	Lighting! Oh, may I call this lightning?

**“** Delilah, also spelled Dalila, in the Old Testament, the central figure of Samson’s last love story (Judges 16). She, bribed to entrap Samson, coaxed him into revealing that the secret of his strength was his long hair, whereupon she took advantage of his confidence to betray him to his enemies. Her name has since become synonymous with a treacherous woman.”

  * “Delilah.” _Encyclopædia Britannica_ , Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 6 Jan. 2020, www.britannica.com/biography/Delilah.



* * *

Watching Sam bustle around the hotel room was strangely relaxing. Juliet stretched, turning her head so that she would be able to track Sam as she fiddled with the lock on their door and checked the latches on the windows. Last night, Juliet had teased her about the windows — their room was on the third floor, after all. In response, Sam had made this exasperated little huff, and the action was so strangely prissy that it had taken nearly an hour for Juliet’s laughing fit to die down.

Satisfied that the door was secure, Sam returned, looking over the room with pride.

“Now if only you could make it so Max is unable to bang on the door each morning,” Juliet quipped, moving so as to make room for Sam to lay down.

Sam grimaced, joining Juliet in bed. “I do not know what is wrong with that man. It is like he thinks we run around the town each night like teenagers, and he’ll catch us if he comes early enough in the morning.”

“It’s better than an alarm, kind of.”

“I will not validate him.”

Juliet rolled her eyes, and Sam broke into a smile.

“You think I’m funny,” Sam insisted, and Juliet grinned back, not saying anything.

Finally, Sam reached to switch off the desk lamp illuminating the small room. There was a _click_ , and the room fell dark.

They lay there in comfortable silence.

“Trade me,” Juliet announced, and Sam’s brow furrowed, puzzled. “I’ll admit you’re funny, _but_ you’ve got to trade me something.”

“You are _very_ pushy,” Sam declared, but there was a spark of interest in her voice.

“Duh. Where do you think I get my wrestling name?”

“What? Oh — ‘Jade Princess’?”

“Yes — well, that and because I’m MMA royalty, practically,” Juliet said, winking.

“You are going to be acting like a complete princess in the morning if you don’t stop being a pest and go to sleep.”

“Trade, Sam, _c’mon_.”

“Fine,” she conceded, holding up a hand in defeat. “What would you like me to trade?”

For a moment, Juliet pretended to think.

“Why ‘Samsonetta’?” Juliet asked, sobering.

Sam blinked. “What?”

“Why—” Juliet paused. “What made you pick that stage name? I realized I never asked.”

Cocking her head, Sam looked back at Juliet, mystified.

“Most of the names people have in the troupe are more gimmicky. You can’t exactly write a book report about the depth to ‘Jade Princess’, I mean.”

“It’s just the feminine version of ‘Samson’, Jules. He’s strong, I’m strong. That’s ‘Samsonetta’.”

“Doesn’t Samson…” Juliet tried. “He dies, doesn’t he, in the end? Just feels like bad luck, is all.”

“Yes.” Sam nodded. “But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t still strong, no?”

They both went silent again.

“Maybe I’m asking this the wrong way,” Juliet admitted, voice soft.

Sam snorted, shifting her weight on the bed so she was looking at Juliet. “I might as well ask why you’re named Juliet.”

“What?”

“Romeo and Juliet isn’t exactly the happiest love story, either.”

“Delilah and Samson isn’t a love story at all, though. And you _chose_ Samsonetta as your name.”

“Someone chose Juliet as your name — wasn’t like you were just born with it,” Sam pointed out, reaching over to play with Juliet’s undone hair. “And even if it’s not a love story, it’s still _about_ love.”

“What?” Juliet chuckled. “That’s a stupid argument.”

“Mm,” Sam hummed. “I could explain it better in Swedish.”

“Jag lär mig svenska!” Juliet protested, playfully shoving her. _I’m learning Swedish!_

Sam’s eyes were soft as moved her hand to cup Juliet’s check, brushing her thumb over the curve of her face. “Inte tillräckligt snabbt.” _Not fast enough._

Suddenly, Juliet propped herself up on her elbows. “If you can explain it half in English, I’ll meet you in the middle.”

Now it was Sam’s turn to laugh. “I don’t know if there is a mix between Swedish and English.”

“Swenglish.”

Sam made a face. “I don’t like that.”

“Rude.”

“I’ll try to explain it in English,” Sam decided. “But stop me if things start sounding muddled.”

Juliet nodded, sinking back down onto the pillows.

“When I joined Max’s wrestling company, they had me pick a stage name,” Sam started, and Juliet nodded.

“They made me do the same.”

Sam smiled, tapping Juliet lightly on the nose. “I know.”

“It’s almost like we worked together, right?”

“Funny,” Sam said, rolling her eyes. “From the moment after Max had me sign, I was Samsonetta. All of the promotional material and ads had that name on it. Only my checks had my legal name. In my eyes, I _was_ Samsonetta.”

Juliet’s eyebrows knit together. “How so?”

Sam shrugged. “I’m strong. _Very_ strong.”

“Yeah, obviously,” Juliet snorted. “But I mean about the…” she gestured vaguely. “Other part.”

Sam looked surprised. “I… how could that not have been how I saw love?”

Juliet winced, and Sam started, moving to knit their fingers together comfortingly.

“Juliet… when I was 19, you cannot understand how _different_ things were for me.”

“ _Sam_.”

“I was wrong about what love means,” Sam continued, tone gentle as she brushed her fingers through Juliet’s hair. “I know that because of you. But at that time, there was no other way I could have seen the idea of falling in love —as a betrayal. Every woman could have been my Delilah. To admit I was in love with… with a woman would have been to admit I was pulled away from my path in life. I felt that kind of love would be destined to end only in ruin for me.”

“You know that’s not true,” Juliet insisted, moving closer in the bed. “You don’t still—”

Sam smiled, eyes twinkling in the dark. “Now, I am Sam, not Samsonetta. I-I know that I was wrong about many things. A year ago, I would never have been able to call my parents and talk with them again. I’m still strong — stronger, even. And I am in love,” she finished, planting a kiss on Juliet’s knuckles. “I am Sam.”

* * *

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 5

██████████████████████

███████████████████████

██ lightning █████ ! Oh, █ may I

Call this █ lightning?—O my love, my wife!

██,█████ the honey of thy breath,

Hath ███ power yet ██ thy beauty

██ art not conquered. Beauty’s ensign ██

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death’s pale flag is not █████ there.—

████████████████████████

O, what more favor can I do to thee,

████████████ you██████

█ sun████████████ ?

███give me, █████, dear Juliet,

█████████████ Shall I believe

That ███████████████,

████ ████ ███████████████

████ here███████████████?

██████████ I ██ will stay with thee,

And never ██████████████████

Depart again. Here, here will I remain

████████████████. Oh, here

Will I █████████,

██ shake the █████auspicious stars

████████████████. Eyes, look ██ ██.

Arms, ███ ██ ██ embrace. And, lips, O you

The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss

A ███ bargain to ████ death.

 _(kisses_ JULIET, _takes out the poison)_

███, ███ ████, come, ████ guide.

███ desperate ██, ██ █ █ ██ ██

█████████████████, ██ ██.

Here’s to my love! _(████████)_ O true apothecary,

██████████. ██ █ a kiss ██.

**Author's Note:**

> haha *borat voice* "my wife".
> 
> anyways to quote my own Tumblr: "alright i hate to be a sappy bitch but the layers to juliet/samsonetta… wrestling girlfriends whose names both have ties to love that ends in tragedy and whose relationship would be a subversion of said fate (which relates to juliet’s whole character arc of bucking off the expectations laid at her feet due to the circumstances of her birth)"
> 
> also sorry for my bad Swedish @ any native speakers in the comments :(
> 
> oh!! and the above blackout poetry takes the final scene of Romeo and Juliet in which both R&J die and transforms it into a happy ending — here, "takes out poison" is not "takes out poison" to consume it, but "takes out poison" as in "removes it from one's life, finally getting the ending one deserves".


End file.
